Dollhouse

After mulling it over for a few days, I think I’m ready to talk about Dollhouse (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1135300/). It’s about a bunch of people who have their minds wiped and imprinted with a new personality each week with new skills and become a different character for whatever purpose that the client has in mind. At the end of the job those in the Dollhouse have their minds wiped again as if nothing happened.

Based on that assessment alone, and after seeing the first episode, would I watch it again? Unfortunately: maybe.

It’s the brainchild of Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly) and stars Eliza Dushku. I love Eliza. I loved her in True Lies and instantly had a crush on her, and she was the reason I started watching Buffy (first episode was Graudation, Part 1 where she and SMG duke it out). And Tru Calling kinda fell apart for me, but ED is the one person in Hollywood that I want to meet (more than Spielberg or Whedon or Kevin Smith). But I don’t know if she can pull off a staring role. She kicks ass as a well-rounded character that gets in the way of the star, and you always want to see more of her, but too much of a good thing kinda makes you want to see less of her.

And I also love Joss Whedon and everything he’s done. But I wasn’t jonsed about Dollhouse when I first heard about it, mostly because it goes against everything that these two are good at: creating kickass characters. They have an interesting premise laid out, but hell, Buffy was a cheerleader who kills vampires, what made it interesting was the way that Xander crushed after Buffy and Willow looked on helplessly while Buffy was Julieting Angel’s Romeo and people they know and love start to die. All of that was in Buffy’s first episode. None of that was in Dollhouse. And it’s going to take quite a few episodes to build up towards something interesting, and I know what’s in our future because the whole premise continues on as: and slowly Eliza’s character starts to become self-aware. That’s good as a movie. As a TV show from Fox that has untimely cancelled two of Whedon’s shows in the past, it runs the danger of Tru Calling (where she remembers and changes people but they aren’t really aware of the significance and are not grateful). It’s a show basically about amnesia. AND I HATE AMNESIA!

The episode needed more character pazzaz. It needed a couple of more scenes with the people in the Dollhouse and less with the actual plot. Everyone except the handler was wasted.

And interestingly this week’s upcoming episode will be the original pilot, now bumped into second place because it wasn’t as good a pilot as the failed pilot was, so I’m a little underwhelmed now knowing that I’m watching second-best and numero-uno fell short of the mark.

Heroes, meanwhile, still continues to suck. And Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, needs less of an emo John Connor and a moment where he turns to his uncle and says “you’re a soldier, I’m supposed to be the best, train me.”